A musical improvisation framework for Shaping Interpersonal Trust

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Individuals with Personality Disorder commonly find it difficult to intuitively adapt to changing social situations such as small errors, ruptures and mis-attunements. This difficulty has been attributed to impairments in attachment, mentalization and epistemic trust. Recent research in music therapy addresses how patients can be supported to achieve co-adaptation with others. What is currently lacking is an understanding of how music therapy can enable patients with Personality Disorder to become safe and confident to improvise, i.e. to manage social uncertainty and the risks this entails.

Method

This paper presents a novel musical improvisation framework for Shaping Interpersonal Trust (SIT) within the field of music therapy. The SIT framework is a practice-based theory that enriches our understanding of interpersonal trust as a maturing process of integration within interactive events of connection, pause, and repair.

Results

The Shaping Interpersonal Trust (SIT) framework presents four levels of developing and shaping interpersonal trust between therapist and patient, each requiring an appropriate kind of therapeutic intervention.

Discussion

The SIT framework is intended to guide the music therapist by promoting insightful reflections, and to intervene appropriately where the patient is stranded in the developmental process of shaping interpersonal trust. Interpersonal trust plays an important role in enabling us to manage the social uncertainty of everyday social interactions, facilitating stable interactions over time to build friendships, and to form romantic, supportive, informal, and professional relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Music Therapy
• musical improvisation
• interpersonal trust
• integration
• social uncertainty

This article is referred to by:

Trust development is essential in music therapy

Acknowledgments

We want to thank prof. Ian Cross and Birgit Sebreghts for the enriching comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ All quotes in this paper are used with permission and deidentified.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Notes on contributors

Katrien Foubert

Dr. Katrien Foubert has obtained a master’s in music (violin) and music therapy and a PhD at the KU Leuven. She is a music therapist at the University Psychiatric Centre KU Leuven on a unit for clients with a personality disorder. Dr. Foubert is Assistant Professor in the Bachelor/Master training course of music therapy at LUCA, School of Arts (Belgium) and in the Master training course at the University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen (the Netherlands). She is researcher at the medical faculty KU Leuven. Her research is focused on musical interaction, and in particular the use of mixed methods to analyse, understand and develop the use of clinical improvisation for clients with a personality disorder. Dr. Foubert has generated highly relevant research ideas in the field of Mental Health Research and Music Therapy that has resulted in several grants.

Satinder P. Gill

Dr. Satinder P. Gill is based with the Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge. Following a PhD in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge, her posts have included: Research Scientist with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation’s (NTT) Basic Research Labs, Japan; Dialogue Team Leader, Centre for Knowledge Innovation Research (CKIR) Finland and Centre for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University; and Senior Research Fellow, Middlesex University, London. Her research investigates the pragmatics of rhythm and sense-making in speech, gesture, and music, as a critical lens on the changing nature of presence and tacit engagement in face-to-face and technology mediated communication. She is author of Tacit Engagement: Beyond Interaction (2015), Springer.

Jos De Backer

Prof. Dr. Jos De Backer. Professor and head of the Bachelor and Master training course Music Therapy at LUCA, School of Arts. Senior researcher in the Research Unit Music Therapy at LUCA and boardmember of the committee for doctoral studies. Professor at the faculty of Medicine KU Leuven, Department of Neurosciences. Principal investigator at the research group Center of Contextual Psychiatry. Head of the Music Therapy Department at the University Psychiatric Centre KU Leuven. Prof. De Backer is specialized in clinical improvisation and gives lectures, supervision and workshops about this topic around the world. Past president of the European Music Therapy Confederation (EMTC).